


Family History

by thegreatandpowerfultoaster



Series: Short AU fics [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Family History, Found Family, I Don't Even Know, Origin Story, Other, but not in the way you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatandpowerfultoaster/pseuds/thegreatandpowerfultoaster
Summary: Nureyev gets a bright smile on his face, and raises one hand to his forehead dramatically. "Well, darling, it seems I've lied about my name to you again. They wouldn't have found any Nureyev's to blame because it's not my name. On my birth certificate, at least, which I've found."





	Family History

**Author's Note:**

> I'm never going to write anything especially serious for this fandom and I think I'm good with that! You can just enjoy my experimental nonsense.

He doesn't expect Peter Nureyev to be crawling through his apartment window, nine-thirty on a weekday, but sometimes Juno Steel finds that that's just how his life goes.

"Oh lovely, I was hoping you'd be back by now!"

"I thought you weren't coming back until next week?"

He looks distinctly uncomfortable. Which, for Nureyev isn't  _especially_  uncomfortable, but Juno's getting particularly good at looking under his near-constant mask. "Plans changed," Nureyev says. 

Juno grunts. "You get caught?"

But he's just waved off. "No, nothing like that. Do you know anything about the library on Nereid?"

He shakes his head, and waves Peter over, out of the way of the window and onto the couch. He sits, and props his feet up over the arm of the couch, and puts his head into Juno's lap, and looks up at him with his pretty eyes (The color of the week is blue, which looks good on him). 

"It's got all sorts of historical documents, scanned and easy to look through, of course but some of the older ones are actual paper."

Juno didn't see where this was going (except maybe the theft of one of these probably priceless historical documents) or why paper documents were all that interesting, either. 

"More importantly, however it has a large section detailing the family history of...really anyone, if you can trace it back far enough. I got curious. I wouldn't usually worry about it, but since I found  _you_  I have been more interested in myself rather than my aliases." 

"Glad to have that effect on you, but is this story really going where I think it is? You think the Brahman government wouldn't have tried that?"

Nureyev gets a bright smile on his face, and raises one hand to his forehead dramatically. "Well, darling, it seems I've lied about my name to you again. They wouldn't have found any Nureyev's to blame because it's not my name. On my birth certificate, at least, which I've found." 

Juno doesn't even want to know what brought him to do any of this, although admittedly the picture of Nureyev  _(Not Nureyev? This was getting to be too much)_ sitting at a poorly-lit desk in a big musty library and trying to figure out himself like a puzzle was almost endearing. 

No, it was absolutely endearing.

Oh, and of course he's digging it out of his pocket. The man had stole his own Birth Certificate and Juno wasn't the slightest bit surprised. He unfolds it and holds it out, and Juno reads.

"Alistair...Mercury, born...this can't be right, can it? This can't be you."

From his spot on Juno's lap, Peter grins. "It certainly can be. Shall I explain?"

"Yeah, I think you'd better."

He clears his throat. "Two years before your childhood best friend Bartholemew Mercury-"

"Mick," he interupts. "No one has called him Bartholomew, ever." Except Sasha, when she was extremely upset, but Juno decided not to give him any reason to call Mick that.

"Of course. Two years before Mick Mercury was born, his father and his first wife lived on Brahma. He was a nobody, really but she has opposed the government at every turn, along with her brother, and they were both relatively well known. She dies under strange circumstances, and leaves a child behind. Me, that is."

He stops, then and reaches up to Juno's face. "I'm still Peter, of course, although I'd admit that Alistair Mercury would be less dangerous of a person to be. I want you to call me Peter, darling."

Sometimes Juno has a hard time smiling. In fact, when someone tells him he should smile, his knee-jerk reaction is usually to scowl. 

This is different, of course but he only gets out a half-smile. "Honestly? I'll call you whatever you want, it's all the same to me, as long as it's you." 

"I love you, Juno. I adore you. Shall I keep going? Excellent. So her child is nearly three months old, and living with his father, of course until her brother reappears, going by a different name and telling the young Mister Mercury to get out of Brahma as fast as possible and leave the child behind with him until Mercury can get settled elsewhere. As far as I can figure, Mercury belived him, headed for Mars, and never saw his first son again."

"What sort of shit is that?" Parents are supposed to be good, right? 

Juno doesn't exactly know that from experiences but isn't that the ideal? Didn't he admire Micks dad for stepping up and being a damn father, and not a horrible one at that? 

"It was bad in Brahma by the time he realized that he wasn't going to come back," Peter shakes his head. "I want to believe that he would have came back, were it possible but I don't know. And besides, by then the boy was no longer Alistair Mercury, but Peter Nureyev. And the brother was... "

Juno watches his face fall from excited to hurt. "Let me guess. Starts with an M." Huge douche, big liar, almost committed genocide. The way Nureyev's face changes is telling enough.

"Right as usual, my dearest detective, " he doesn't sound anything but somber. "His name was changed to Mag, and well...you know the rest on my end. Mercury remmaried to a woman here on Mars, and those are Mick's parents. It's...not what I expected to find, nor what I  _wanted_ , but I have...family here. And closure, of course to the near-infinite mystery of my past." 

They sit in silence. 

Juno looks down at him. "You wanna talk to Mick, or his dad- _your_  dad, right? Prepare to be disappointed. I'm pretty sure I heard that his dad dropped one of those," he makes a circle with his finger in the air. "One of those spinner things on Mick's head as a baby." 

He laughs, stark and clear. "I do, but I'm not certain I'm ready for that. I've never....had a family in that manner before. It's a little scary, really. I've not had more than you in...a very long time. Not tonight, at least. But yes, eventually. For now, I would very much like to go take a shower and then sleep. You'll meet me in bed?"

"It's my bed, where else would I be going?" He snaps, even though he doesn't mean it. Peter actually snorts. "I...I'm glad you're back. Glad you got closure." He understood the need for closure just fine, and even if it's closure involving Mick Mercury, Juno's still glad Nureyev has it. "Now go shower so I can get to sleep sometime this year." 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Family History [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191061) by [Cryke_Audio (Crykea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crykea/pseuds/Cryke_Audio)




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